The Commander’s Chair – The Voltron Matrix

I like to build decks with a strong overall theme and synergies that flow throughout the entire deck. During the Reaper King contest, two particular cards were brought to my attention, Melira, Sylvok Outcast and Juniper Order Ranger. I want to build a deck around the strong synergies related to both of these creatures. To accomplish this, I will use one of my favorite methods of deck construction, the Matrix. The Matrix isn’t just an awesome movie. It is also a wonderful way to plan out a deck. You start with a primary focus point for your deck and build around it. In most cases, this is your general. However, you can choose anything to be the focus of your Matrix.

There are several advantages to building a deck this way. First, the deck will have a plan. A “good stuff” deck tries to stumble upon victory. A deck built with a matrix has a path it is trying to follow. Second, every card in the matrix is a threat. Each card that you add to the matrix has an active role in bringing you closer to victory. Third, other players need to control you not the other way around. When you assemble the correct pieces you will win the game. You do not need to worry nearly as much about what other people are doing. Last, you will have a greater understanding of how to play your deck. Building your own deck will let you play with a purpose. Magic is a game where you race to victory. You will know the route you want to take and how you want to go about moving along that route.

To make sure this doesn’t go out of control, I will be sticking with bant colors. If you do this at home, do not limit yourself to what colors you use until after the Matrix is complete and your getting ready to piece together a deck. To start, you want to outline the center of your deck.

Next, you add any cards that support the theme with any cards that normally would not have any synergy. If your deck revolves around artifacts this might be a Mycosynth Lattice. For a persist themed deck, Cauldron of Souls fits the bill perfectly.

At this point you should have mapped out a basic plan for winning the game. If you stop here, your deck will be ok, but very weak to disruption. After we have included cards that run off of our primary engine, we want to build in secondary engine that will work well with what we have chosen as a win condition. Aluren+ Stonecloaker, Fleetfoot Panther, Shrieking Drake, Silver Drake or Whitemane Lion will create an infinite loop to go with comes into play abilities. Aluren + Enduring Renewal will let us repeatedly play any creature that costs 3 or less.

At this point we should have most of the deck figured out. The main structure of the deck is complete and now we want to make this as secure as possible. We accomplish this by adding in tutors. We want tutors that can connect with as many pieces as possible. This is where the matrix get a little complicated. For this deck I would include;

Now we have enough information to put together a reasonable decklist around the cards we have chosen. We will need to cut some cards to make it all work, as well as add a mana base. Here is what I put together from this example of a Matrix;

That’s all for this week. Thank you all the contestants from the Reaper King contest. The remaining prizes will be in the mail tomorrow. As usual, I can be contacted at seanpatch@hotmail.com for any deck advice, article criticisms or random trolling. I hope everyone has a great prerelease.

You can always direct complaints about titles to me. What about the deck disqualifies it from being a voltron deck? I consider Voltron decks to be decks that make combos by compiling a number of specific parts into a working machine. In this case Melira or Juniper Order Ranger + Persist Creature + Sac Outlet + Enters Battlefield / Goes to Graveyard trigger. Maybe you have a different definition?